Insurance — Against What?

The brouhaha over whether Catholic institutions should be required to provide insurance coverage for contraception highlights everything that is wrong with medical insurance today. And Obama’s “compromise” of requiring insurance companies to provide contraception for free, thereby sidestepping the argument that Catholic institutions shouldn’t have to pay for it, is even worse.

No one should use insurance to pay for contraception. It is a regular, pre-planned expense of daily living. There is nothing to “insure.” There is no guesswork in whether a person will need it or not. It is the best example of the current problems with medical "insurance."

The purpose of insurance is to protect against unexpected catastrophic expenses — the kind of costs you wouldn’t be able to cover on your own. It is a way of hedging your bets against disaster. People pool their money, and whoever has a disaster gets to take money out of the pot. If too many disasters occur, the pool runs dry. The only remedy is to increase the amount each person pays into the pool, and decrease (through healthier, safer living) the number of disasters that individuals can’t pay for themselves.

Some people may never “get their money’s worth” out of their insurance premiums, because they remain healthy and accident-free. And that’s a good thing.

Insurance is the lottery you don’t want to win.

We have to stop thinking about insurance as some kind of unlimited prepaid plan in which everyone scrambles to “get their money’s worth.” For an insurance program to work, there need to be more healthy people than unhealthy people. Insurance premiums always have to outweigh medical payments. But when we start covering every little doctor’s appointment and medical expense, there isn’t enough money left for the true disasters without vastly increasing the premiums.

Contraception is a perfect example. There is nothing catastrophic or unexpected about its cost. If a person is having sex and doesn’t want to make a baby, the cost of contraception is as regular and predictable as clockwork. There is no unexpected event to insure against (unless the contraception doesn’t work — but that’s a different medical event). There is no reason to insure against the possibility that you will have sex.

About this Author

Jo Ann Skousen is the director of the Anthem Libertarian Film Festival and the co-producer of FreedomFest, where the new Arts Track will offer several sessions focusing on music.

Arctic Warming

The Arctic region is beginning to get hot — but not for anything having to do with “global warming.” No, international tensions are increasing, because of the increasing international demand for fossil fuels.

As Alan Dowd of the Fraser Institute notes in a recent piece, the Arctic is attracting rapidly growing geostrategic attention.

The place is amazingly rich in fossil fuels. The US Geological Survey puts total Arctic oil reserves at 90 billion barrels of oil, or about 13% of estimated undiscovered reserves worldwide, and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, or about 30% of the world’s undiscovered gas.

Those are just the conventionally available fuels. God alone knows how much unconventional fossil fuel energy (shale oil and gas, methane hydrates, and so on) lies beneath that frigid sea.

These resources are becoming more and more commercially attractive, for several reasons. First, the Green Regime in Washington has worked to strangle our own domestic production, hoping to shift America to dependence on so-called green energy (wind, solar, and biofuels). Second, Middle East production is increasingly expensive. Finally, as formerly poor countries such as India and China become ever more industrialized, their consumption of fossil fuels is growing. The Energy Information Agency projects a 20% increased in world oil usage over the next 18 years.

This is leading inexorably to friction among nations that have claims in the Arctic: the United States, Canada, Russia, and Norway (together, to a lesser extent, with Sweden and Finland). And it is no surprise the form that this increasing tension is taking: Russia, under the Putin Regime, is pushing to control the lion’s share of the region’s energy wealth.

Russia’s intentions are easy to read from its actions. A 2007 Russian expedition planted the Russian flag on the North Pole. Its leader boasted, “The Arctic is ours!” A year later, a Russian general said that his country was planning to train troops to engage in combat in the region, noting cheekily that “wars these days are won and lost before they are launched.” A year after that, Russia announced that it was opening a string of bases along its northern tier. And last year, it announced plans to deploy 10,000 troops in the region to “defend its Arctic claims.”

And there has been a dramatic increase in Russian bomber interceptions by Canadian and American fighters (up from eight between 1999 and 2006 to 45 between 2007 and 2010). All this is evidence that Putin wasn’t joking when he recently said, “Russia intends without a doubt to expand its presence in the Arctic. We are open to dialogue, but naturally, the defense of our geopolitical interests will be hard and consistent.”

In reaction, both the Bush and the Obama administrations have reaffirmed our national security interests in the region. The US keeps 20,000 troops in Alaska and is conducting “Northern Edge” exercises meant to train our forces in defending the Arctic and keeping the waterways open.

Canada is also concerned. It is constructing new military bases in its Northern Territories and is training troops. The Canadian military has conducted joint exercises with the American and Danish military. A few years ago, Norway conducted Arctic maneuvers with 12 other nations, as did Sweden on its own a year later. Now Finland, Norway, and Sweden together are developing a “Nordic security partnership.” And Denmark is beefing up its military forces in Greenland (its legal territory). The pacifist nations appear to be uniting over this matter.

Such happy high jinks! Notice that these countries aren’t fighting over solar panels, wind turbines, or switchgrass farms. No, they’re fighting over fossil fuels. But, then, people don’t argue over what has no value.

The place is amazingly rich in fossil fuels. The US Geological Survey puts total Arctic oil reserves at 90 billion barrels of oil, or about 13% of estimated undiscovered reserves worldwide, and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, or about 30% of the world

About this Author

Gary Jason is an academic philosopher and a senior editor of Liberty. His recent books, Disturbing Thoughts: Unorthodox Writings on Timely Issues and Philosophic Thoughts: Essays on Logic and Philosophy are both available through Amazon.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs

I collect markers of what I call “roadkill” legislation — roadside signs that demean my intellect or destroy my privileges. My favorite, of course, is “Click it or Ticket”. Get it? How clever of my state’s Humorous Sign Department (staffed by a dozen failed ex-comedians who enjoy fat salaries and a pension plan promising double their salary). The seatbelt sign reminds me that the belt, my strapped in belly, and the car belong to me. So does the road (my taxes). And I recall with sadness decedents, strangled by seat belts, who left this vale of tears after being T-boned or plunged into rivers, while many an unbelted survivor has been tossed from his vehicle toward safety.

Not to mention kids crushed by safety bags. What federal bureaucrat foresaw that? Why does my son ban me from seating my precious grandson in the front seat? “You’ll kill him!” he hollers as we back out of the driveway. Gee, I thought they saved lives.

However, the epitome of the state’s arrogance is “Traffic Fines Double in Work Zone.” It attributes to me the lowest of morals. Let’s see; if I knock down a road worker and it only costs $75, I’ll consider bowling one over and getting to work on time. What’s the calculus? One mashed road worker and congratulations: “Ted, you’re on time this morning”? But doubly fined — $150? That’s apparently enough of a penalty to upset my moral equation. I’d risk a worker’s life for $75, but not for $150. That’s what my state thinks of me. Not very flattering.

Forget occupying Wall Street. What we need is a roadsign protest movement that occupies our nation’s streets, cruising unbelted to a convocation site. Composed mainly of Washington lawyers disguised as farmers in denims and straw hats, they sue the first cop who slaps a seatbelt violation on them. They take it all the way to the Supreme Court, where any properly briefed schoolboy can prove that the Constitution doesn’t even whisper of straps, belts, or suspenders while riding your horse, and it’s clearly an infringement on the comfort of your own body, especially after a large, inflationary meal.

I save the best for last. The newest reminder by the state is that our life expectancy would go up ten years if we discarded our nefarious vehicles in favor of plodding horses, mules, or better yet, large turtles imported from the Galapagos Islands. How safe we would be! I refer here to the “No Texting While Driving” billboard. It doesn’t mention eating corn on the cob, reading War and Peace, or undertaking acrobatic sexual activity. Just texting. What about telephoning? That’s not dangerous when your wife tells you that her sister — the one with two kids — is coming to live with you? In the face of such news you’re not going to make a U-over four lanes of traffic to get to the bar, or end up in the front seat of the car in front of you? Or maybe bail out, converting your car into an unguided missile . . .

In summing up the above on personal safety, I say it is a matter of personal choice unless it infringes the rights of others. Sadly, we live in an age when society has robbed us of any choice in these concerns, as well as others that are much more serious. We’re on a slippery slope.

About this AuthorTed Roberts' humor appears in newspapers around the US and is heard on NPR.

Mittimal Damage

After being badgered incessantly by Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum, “vulture capitalist” Romney finally released his tax filings. We finally got to see what dirt was being covered up in his returns.

And the dirt was — nothing!

The press sifted through the 500 plus pages of Romney’s 2010 filing (and his projected filing for 2011), desperately looking for something to hit him with, and Romney came out totally clean. The media mission was to find new material that their guy Obama could use to bash Romney, but the mission was an abject failure.

True, the released material shows Romney to be a very rich man. But the filings only confirm what anybody could have found by Google-searching the dude and reading his Wiki entry, to wit, that he is worth around a quarter of a billion bucks. Listen, don’t get me wrong: I would love to have that kind of scratch. But it doesn’t put the man on the Forbes 400 Richest Americans list — he’s nowhere as wealthy as such media-darling leftist billionaires as Warren Buffett and George Soros.

Progressives are cheap when it comes to spending their own money to help others. They are generous only with other people’s money.

To be precise, in 2010 Romney earned $21.7 million, of which $12.6 million was capital gains, $3.3 million taxable interest, $4.9 million dividend income, and the remaining million or so money coming from various business gains, refunds, and speaking fees. Romney gave a whopping $3 million to charity — about 14% of his income.

Taxes on cap gains, dividends, and interest rates are a flat 15%, and charitable donations are quite legally deductible — which explains why he “only” paid about $3 million in taxes (about a 14% effective tax rate).

In short, he legitimately minimized his taxes, and paid no more than he was legally required to. This puts him in the same boat as the rest of us, Obama and Biden (and Buffett and Soros) included. I confess that I try to minimize my taxes legally. I never — repeat, never — pay more than the law requires, and I have nowhere near Romney’s tax burden.

The mainstream media was reduced to nitpicking. It turns out, for example, that Romney — whose portfolio is in a blind trust, please note, so invests without his knowledge or control — had small investments in Swiss and Cayman Island accounts. All quite legal if declared to the government — and it was.

Of his generous charitable giving, half of it went to the Mormon church, and the rest to a variety of charities, including one for researching MS (an ailment that afflicts his wife).

His projected 2011 filing, which he has promised to release in April when it is filed, shows similar income, charitable outlays, and tax rate.

There is no doubt that Obama will use as much of this as he can to hammer Romney in the fall, assuming that Romney is the Republican nominee, which I regard as virtually certain. But there is little ammo here.

Indeed, Romney’s lavish charitable giving actually underscores Obama’s cheapness when it comes to charitable giving. Compare the nearly 14% of his income ($3,000,000) that Romney gave, to what the Obamas did: from 2000 through 2004, they gave about 1% to charity (or less than $11,000), and in 2007 they gave 5.7% (or about $240,000). Even more tight-fisted was VP Joe Biden, who averaged a pathetic 0.3% (a truly risible $349) in annual charitable giving in the decade before he became vice president, and not much more since. Last year, Biden gave 1.4% ($5,300) to charity. Truly nothing compared to Romney.

The national average for giving is about 5%.

This illustrates the thesis of Arthur Brook’s estimable Who Really Cares?, a book I reviewed for these pages some time back (March 2009, 43–6): the progressives are cheap when it comes to spending their own money to help others. They are generous only with other people’s money.

Even the 14% tax rate that Romney enjoys is hard to use against him. Remember, the John Kerry household paid 13%, and the Democrats had no problem voting for him as their nominee. And for Obama to push the capital gains and dividend rates back up is for him to risk a major downturn on the stock market, as well as in the lavish support he is getting from his billionaire buddies. That could cost him the election.

In the end, after relentless attacks by Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum, all that has been revealed about Romney is that he legally and ethically earned a large amount of money, paid his taxes, and is a devout member of his church. In short, what is known now is what everybody knew all along.

Given that Obama has few accomplishments he can run on, we can also expect from him what we knew all along. His likely $2 billion reelection campaign (the $1 billion his campaign will have to spend, and the $1 billion that will be spent by groups that support him) will be entirely negative. And it will be as repetitive as it will be negative. It will simply repeat that Romney is rich, rich, rich! And he is white, white, white! And he is Mormon, Mormon, Mormon!

I am weary already.

About this Author

Gary Jason is an academic philosopher and a senior editor of Liberty. His recent books, Disturbing Thoughts: Unorthodox Writings on Timely Issues and Philosophic Thoughts: Essays on Logic and Philosophy are both available through Amazon.

Do the Republicans Deserve to Lose?

Liberty readers presumably want to defeat President Obama and the Democrats. Apart from his beliefs, policies, and associates, Obama is a decent man. His challenger, to have a chance of winning, should be one also. Moreover, he should not have so much in his background requiring excuses and apologies — no matter how valid — as to preempt the voters’ limited attention from policy issues.

No one has a right to the nomination, or to complain about unfairness if he doesn’t get it. Electability is a reasonable requirement even for the most decent person.

Gingrich’s excuses and apologies are not even good ones, in my view, even though they may work in campaigning. His undistinguished record at West Georgia College, his questionable ethics and other reasons for being forced out of the speakership and even out of Congress, his half-truths, his “grandiosity” (so identified by Rick Santorum), and his marital infidelities all testify to his character. His claim to have changed his character and to have received or at least to have asked for God’s forgiveness strikes me as disgusting hypocrisy.

In a column in the Opelika-Auburn News of January 21, the paper’s publisher aptly calls Gingrich “an arrogant, hypocritical, corrupt blowhard” who “is disliked most fervently by those people who know him best. . . .” In my word, he is a slimy character.

Mitt Romney seems competent; and if he commits himself to so-called conservative policies, however belatedly, I suppose that he will faithfully pursue them. He could quite probably justify how he made his money and why he paid low taxes; but his doing so, however soundly, will leave a residue of doubt with many voters and will divert time and attention from real issues. He lacks charisma. Again, it is not unfair to expect electability of a candidate.

Rick Santorum appears to be a decent person, but he devotes too much attention to pushing socially conservative views rather than to real economic and fiscal problems. Ron Paul is sincere and passionate; but the voting public is not ready for consistent libertarianism, perhaps especially not on foreign policy. Gary Johnson would have been a more persuasive candidate inclined toward libertarianism. In comparison with the now remaining four aspirants, Jon Huntsman appealed to me.

It is hackneyed but relevant to recognize that the personal characteristics required of a successful campaigner are quite different from those of a high government official. What could be done? The Founding Fathers, well versed in history, had foresight. The Constitution, Article II, Section 1, says that each state shall appoint presidential electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct. . . .” The legislatures might constitutionally specify the appointment of electors otherwise than by statewide direct popular vote, conceivably even by lot (although better ideas may turn up). And the electors from all the states might be encouraged to meet and discuss candidates before casting their votes. Of course, no such reform is in the cards.

As things now stand, I am afraid that Bret Stephens is right in his Wall Street Journal opinion piece of January 24: “The GOP Deserves to Lose.” I’d appreciate being shown why my pessimism is mistaken.

The poet’s complaint is that sometimes he just can’t think of a sufficient metaphor. Of course, his complaint is merely a pretence, merely a way of starting a poem. Shakespeare could never be at a loss for imagery.

Well, I can be. Especially now.

What a season we live in! Its dullness exceeds all normal human powers of simile and metaphor.

A ship runs into a sandbar and takes on water. A handful of its 4,000 passengers and crew perish. So dull are our times that this event, the “sinking” of the Costa Concordia, is heralded throughout the world as a “Titanic-like tragedy.” But look, the ship didn’t even sink. It’s there right now, more than halfway out of the water. If it wasn’t for the Italian coast guard, picnickers could be frolicking there today. To what shall we compare the public reaction to this non-event?

The big political news in California is that our Democratic governor wants to raise taxes. What a surprise! Also that he and the Democratic leadership of the state House and Senate want to keep financing a 400-mile “high-speed” rail project that wouldn’t even be high-speed, at a cost only five times as great as that authorized by voters when they foolishly, but predictably, authorized it, several moons ago. Shall we compare this to a summer’s day? Is it worthwhile even to hunt for metaphors?

Now turn and survey the Republican primary context. How many “debates” have these people had? 15? 18? 95? And it’s barely election year. Shall I compare this to a winter’s sludge? And look at the candidates. Look at their “issues.” Exempting Ron Paul, who actually has radical things to say (although, ahem, you and I have heard them many times before, because we are libertarians), what the hell do these people have to say that’s worth saying at the length they’ve already taken? Shall we compare them to snails, bewitched by their progress across a 10-foot sidewalk? To mice steadily eating their breadloaf house? To a nest of blind mole rats? To a wall from which all brickbats bounce?

But you see how far one has to reach for imagery. It’s hopeless, truly hopeless. I won’t even try finding metaphors and similes for the current president. Now there is one dull fellow. Imagine a book entitled The Wit and Wisdom of Barack Obama. You see my point.

In Richard III, someone mentions “the winter of our discontent.” Shakespeare, thou shouldst be living at this hour! Then you could write about the ice age of our boredom.

About this Author

Stephen Cox is editor of Liberty, and a professor of literature at the University of California San Diego. His recent books include The Big House: Image and Reality of the American Prison and American Christianity: The Continuing Revolution. Newly published is Culture and Liberty, a selection of works by Isabel Paterson.

They're Coming for Your Internet

In a thinly-veiled message to Internet users throughout the US and beyond, the FBI today (Jan. 19) shut down the file-sharing service MegaUpload.com, seizing the company’s domain name along with its headquarters. With this raid, the feds clearly meant to show that they were the bosses of the online world, laws and legislation be damned. As usual, they had no idea what they were getting themselves into.

Back up a couple days. On the eve of January 17, Internet sites all over the world were preparing to “blackout” to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) then under consideration in the House of Representatives (in the Senate, as the Protect Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA). The bill would give the government power to seize any website that was reported to be hosting pirated material, or even providing links to such material.

Those doing the reporting, of course, would be the media companies themselves — thus giving them, essentially, a kill switch for sites they don’t like. So if you pan a big-budget movie — or break off a relationship with a studio exec — or really just in any way piss off anyone connected to a lawyer in the entertainment industry — your site could get shut down without due process and without recourse.

But the possibilities for petty revenge are far from the worst thing about the bill. That would be instead its potential to crush political dissent. Under SOPA, the presence of any link to “pirated” material would be sufficient to kill a site — even if the content is provided by anonymous commenters. Hence, the easiest way to silence dissidence online would be to spam the offending site with dubious links.

Even the biggest sites would be susceptible to such tactics; hence why even the behemoths of the Internet, such as Google and Wikipedia, signed onto the protest. With such sites as these “blacked-out” (usually redirecting to petitions or email-your-congressman forms), even casual Internet users found themselves confronted with the ramifications of the government’s latest lunatic notion. For once the people spoke, and many Congressmen reversed position.

The feds couldn’t let such a demonstration go unpunished, but lacking the power to shut down Google and Wikipedia (for now, anyway), they did the next best thing: publicly target and destroy a site like MegaUpload, as a way of announcing that they would shut down whomever they felt like. What they always forget, though, is how little they know about computing and networking, compared to the people who put together the kinds of sites they want to shut down. The response from the actually competent sector of the online world was swift and brutal: within two hours, the hacker collective Anonymous (previously best known for taking down the Church of Scientology site) had attacked and temporarily killed off the sites for the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, the US Copyright Office, and assorted major film studios and record labels.

These sites will all come back, obviously: only the government would claim the right to banish a site for good. But the mere fact that they could go down at all shows their vulnerability to attacks from very loosely affiliated networks of competent individuals. And that is a weakness that, try as they might, the DoJ, the FBI, the MPAA, et al., can never come to grips with: their very existence is predicated on massive, centralized, bureaucratic incompetence. To give that up would be to begin their own dismemberment.

It will be fascinating — and a bit worrying — to see how the government and major media companies will respond. Certainly SOPA and PIPA will come back in new, more insidious forms, probably as riders on unrelated bills. Though President Obama bucked his industry pals and came out against the bills this time (only, of course, once the online campaign against them was in full cry), there is no guarantee he would in a second term. Meanwhile, among the Republican candidates, only Ron Paul (natch) has denounced the bills; a President Romney, Gingrich, or Perry would probably sign them into law. [Edit: in the evening's Republican primary debate in South Carolina, candidates Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul all spoke out against SOPA — though Romney and especially Santorum still appeared to leave space for future censorship of the internet.]

Until then, what is required of us is vigilance — vigilance, and an unyielding determination not to let a few hundred computer illiterates in Washington DC legislate away our cultural future.

Government-Grown Lemons

A flurry of recent reports brings us up to date on GM — now known as Government Motors, after its nationalization by the Regime. The news is less than inspiring.

First is the report that GM is recalling nearly 4,300 Chevrolet Sonics — because they may be missing their brake pads! The incredible news is that workers at the Orion Township, Michigan assembly plant left off inner or outer brake pads on many of the Sonics manufactured there.

The funny thing is that the same Regime Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood who told Americans to avoid Toyotas in a bogus brake scare is totally silent about this real brake fiasco.

Then there's the news that came out on the “legendary” Chevy Volt — you know, the EV green machine car of our future. For one thing, it appears that the damn things are costing American taxpayers about $250,000 for every vehicle sold. This to subsidize a car purchased by people whose average income is $170,000 a year.

That’s the estimate provided by James Hohman, economist at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. He analyzed the 18 government deals that were involved in setting up the Volt line — all the loan subsidies, taxpayer-funded rebates, tax credits, and government grants at the federal and state levels that were arranged for this car. The thing is indisputably green in one sense: it takes taxpayer dollars to keep it alive.

Hohman's estimate does not, by the way, include the bailout money that has been shoveled at GM as a company. Nor does it include municipal support.

The deals Hohman reviewed included $690 million of support by the state of Michigan and $2.3 billion in federal support. That’s a total of $3 billion in for the 6,000 Volts actually sold. As Hohman puts it, “This might be the most government-supported car since the Trabant” (the infamous piece of junk manufactured by East Germany).

Worse, it turns out that GM is calling back all Chevy Volts because of a fire hazard. Seeing several Volts catch fire after crash tests showed that electrical shorts in the battery can ignite the coolant, GM is going to try to fix the problem by strengthening the battery compartment. Just in time!

But the Volt isn’t the only EV that is prone to battery-induced fires. Fisker Automotive has announced that it is recalling its entire line of luxury plug-in hybrids (which sell for over $100,000 each!) because of fire hazards.

I mention the Fisker, because even though it builds its cars in Finland, it received $529 million in American taxpayer-backed loan guarantees. The Regime assured us that the American taxpayer would be paying to provide American jobs, but that was just another lie.

About this Author

Gary Jason is an academic philosopher and a senior editor of Liberty. His recent books, Disturbing Thoughts: Unorthodox Writings on Timely Issues and Philosophic Thoughts: Essays on Logic and Philosophy are both available through Amazon.

How Unpatriotic Can You Get?

One of the classic attacks by leftists on rightists is the assertion that people on the right typically question the patriotism of their opponents. In my experience, it is typically the leftists who resort to that particular ad hominem trope.

We have no better illustration than our current National Healer, Barack Obama. Obama, a master of the ad hominem attack, famously called Bush “unpatriotic” for running up nearly $4 trillion in national debt. (That included TARP, which was repaid by the banks with interest, early in Obama’s reign.)

Now, however, Obama has quietly requested another $1.2 trillion rise in the national debt ceiling. That would raise the current national debt to $16.4 trillion. In his three years in office, he has already added $4.6 trillion to the debt, far more than Bush did in eight years. Obama makes Bush look like a miser — no easy feat. He is increasing the national debt at an average of $4.24 billion a day, and will have added $6.2 trillion to the debt in his first (and, I hope, his last) term.

That would mean that Obama will have added more to the national debt than all the presidents preceding Bush — from Washington to Clinton — combined. To use another epithet he hurled at Bush, his spending has been nothing short of “irresponsible.”

About this Author

Gary Jason is an academic philosopher and a senior editor of Liberty. His recent books, Disturbing Thoughts: Unorthodox Writings on Timely Issues and Philosophic Thoughts: Essays on Logic and Philosophy are both available through Amazon.

Tim Tebow's Secret Handshake

This weekend, the Denver Broncos face off against the heavily-favored New England Patriots in the second round of the NFL championship playoffs. The game is worthy of note because it means another week of pop culture fixation on Denver quarterback Tim Tebow.

Even if you don’t follow professional football, you’ve probably heard of Tebow. The former University of Florida star has crossed over into mainstream culture reference. Some of the popular interest focuses on his unconventional mechanics and style of play; most of it focuses on his devout — and conspicuously proclaimed — Christian faith. His practice of kneeling in prayer before and after games has been copied (and mocked) widely.

As long as he keeps any jihadi impulses to himself, I care little about another man’s religious beliefs. Nor do I share the contempt that some atheists have for the faithful. Generally, I agree with the spirit of Pascal’s Wager: lacking conclusive data, I would be arrogant to assert or deny the existence of an omnipotent diety.

Musing on the metaphysical qualities of God isn’t the point of this reflection, though. The strong reaction to one football player’s public shows of piety renders my diffidence . . . insufficient.

Tebow doesn’t mind proselytizing. In fact, he — like many of his coreligionists — believes that promoting God is essential to serving God. His logic goes something like this: God gave Tebow athletic talent and charisma not because He cares who wins a given game but because fame on the football field creates a bigger platform for Tebow’s message of devotion. So, Tebow believes he is obligated to use his media access to reach out to others more effectively than conventional preachers can. Doing so, he plays into the biases and neuroses of the statist Left . . . and neither side seems to mind.

The establishment Left has had many cultural victories; one of these is the effective blurring of people’s personal and political lives. This blurring is a major reason that Tebow shoulders more political connotation than any other sports celebrity in recent years. But “the personal is political” trivializes and cheapens political discourse. It reducesto stale cliché debates that should be vibrant and essential.

Tebow courts this clichéd response. While still a college player, he filmed a television ad for an anti-abortion advocacy group. The ad was sophisticated and avoided strident words or tone. The already-famous athlete and his mother talked about health troubles she’d experienced while expecting him; she implied that another woman might have chosen to have an abortion. And they ended by making a pitch for choosing life.

The usual gang of idiots in the popular media — the execrable Bill Maher, the fey Jon Stewart, the undeservedly self-impressed Rachel Maddow — rose to the bait and have taken turns pillorying Tebow. But all of this is a kind of Kabuki ritual. The outrage is canned, the excess seems calculated. The TV people make cheap points with their core audiences; the Christian athlete gets a red badge of courage with his.

I’ve long been interested in the “secret handshake” that some public figures signal — perhaps instinctively — to the public. Whether that public is adoring or loathing. To me, Bill Clinton remains the master signaler of our times; he conveyed loyalty to the statist Left, even though his actions sometimes betrayed their faith. The pop singer Madonna does it, too; she conveys much more than she actually delivers on stage.

The current president has some of this — but seems more passive and less masterful than Slick Willie or the Material Girl.

Tebow is very good at this signaling. His recent success on the football field is, as he says, only part of a more-ambitious agenda. His opposite number on the Patriots — future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady — may be better at his job. But Tebow’s playing a bigger game.